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India and South Africa have finally signed a long-pending agreement to translocate 12 cheetahs to India, the Environment Ministry said in a statement on Friday. The cheetahs will be transported to India by February-end and reintroduced at the Kuno National Park in Madhya Pradesh, where eight such cats were brought …

Data show that India, with nearly 18% of the world’s population, occupies about 2.4% of the total geographical area and consumes 4% of total water resources. A World Bank report says that India is the largest groundwater user. A rapidly growing economy and population are straining the country’s groundwater resources. …

News from Davos and Delhi in the third week of January has framed the moral and intellectual crises affecting Indian economic policies. In the first instance, speaking at a session at the World Economic Forum in Davos on India’s road to a $10 trillion economy, the Chairman of Tata Sons …

In the week ahead, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will present her fifth and this government’s last full-fledged Budget before the Lok Sabha election in 2024. Although some electoral overtures can be made in an interim Budget next year, the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government will also be mindful of the flurry …

In her first and customary Republic Day address to the nation, President Draupadi Murmu reiterated the founding ideals of the Republic on the eve of the 74th anniversary of the adoption of its Constitution. As the first tribal woman to occupy the highest office in the country, the 15th President …

The Tamil Nadu government has sanctioned ₹7.5 crore in equity investments to five start-ups that were founded and managed by entrepreneurs of the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes. Chief Minister M.K.Stalin handed over the sanction orders on Friday in the presence of Minister for Finance and Human Resources Management …

India announced on Friday that it wants to modify the 62-year-old Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) with Pakistan, citing what it called Pakistan’s “intransigence” in resolving disputes over the Kishenganga and Ratle hydropower projects, both in Jammu and Kashmir. India also protested Pakistan’s “unilateral” decision to approach a court of arbitration …

Six million Jews were murdered in cold blood — a consequence of the worst form of government-sponsored antisemitism in Nazi-Germany. Today, on International Holocaust Remembrance Day (January 27), we remember those who became the victims of the unprecedented and systematic killings. Remembering the dead is our responsibility, and fighting against …

Indian technology services firms are currently encountering a ‘problem of plenty’ with staff and may lay off anywhere between 80,000 and 1,20,000 people over the next two quarters, as per HR sources. Google — whose products allow it access to industry insights and market visibility — announcing plans to lay …

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is planning to launch the Aditya-L1 mission by June or July this year. Aditya-L1 is the first Indian space mission to observe the Sun and the solar corona. ISRO chairman S. Somanath, speaking at the handover ceremony of the Visible Line Emission Coronagraph (VELC) …

As Russia’s Ukraine invasion enters its 12th month, all sides are gearing up for a major escalation in the conflict. Russia, which suffered some setbacks last year after its initial thrust into Ukraine, is trying to build battlefield momentum with minor advances. Ukraine, whose troops are struggling to defend the …

The fact that the multipolar international system is fast unfolding is reinforced by clear trends in polycentric global geoeconomics. There is significant trade within the Global South; currency swap agreements; trade in national currencies bypassing the dollar; steps towards trading oil and gas in national currencies; the promotion of such …

Speculation abounds that the Indian Navy could cancel Project-75 India (I)-class for submarine production and instead acquire more Scorpene (Kalvari class) submarines — the fifth submarine from this class, INS Vagir, was commissioned into the Navy on January 23. A media report last week claimed that the Navy, faced with …

The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has blocked over 50 tweets on Twitter that carried a link to the BBC documentary, “India: The Modi Question”. In an order on January 20, 2023, the government used emergency powers under the Information Technology Rules, 2021 and Section 69A of the Information Technology …

In what could be termed as a first for dholes (wild dogs), a partial albino dhole (Cuon alpinus) has been photo-documented in the Cauvery Wildlife Sanctuary. This is not only the first-ever record of albinism in dholes from India but also from its entire distribution range in 11 countries. The …

1 of 6 Vani Jairam, K. Kalyanasundaram Pillai, ‘Palam’ Kalyana Sundaram, Vadivel Gopal and Masi Sadaiyan, Nalini Parthasarathy and Gopalsamy Five persons from Tamil Nadu and one from Puducherry have been chosen for Padma Awards this year for their contribution in the their respective fields, including medicine, art and social work. Renowned …

Two snake catching experts from the Irula community — Vadivel Gopal and Masi Sadaiyan — were chosen to be honoured with the Padma Shri awards on Wednesday. Lakshmanan highlights the plight of the Scheduled Tribe communities in Tamil Nadu and the need for some remedies in the article dated November …

Japan is expected to start flushing 1.25 million tonnes of wastewater from the embattled Fukushima nuclear power plant into the Pacific Ocean this year, as part of a $76-billion project to decommission the facility. The project received the Japanese cabinet’s approval in 2021 and could take three decades to complete. …

It is unfortunate that Ayodhya has come to occupy space in public discourse only with the Babri Masjid-Ram Janmabhoomi conflict. Historically, the city of Ayodhya, literally meaning, ‘to fight’, goes much deeper than many of the more celebrated cities of India. Often respected as a sacred city for Hindus, the …

On January 18, the Steering Committee of the Ken-Betwa Link Project (KBLP) held its third meeting in New Delhi. It was chaired by the Secretary of the Department of Water Resources, in the Ministry of Jal Shakti, who reiterated that the KBLP was a “flagship” project of the national government …